Mediaboss Marketing

An Amazon logo appears on an Amazon delivery van, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020, in Boston. Amazon wont be forced to restore web service to Parler after a federal judge ruled Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021 against a plea to reinstate the fast-growing social media app favored by followers of former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, file)

Conservatives gasped with horror when Twitter banned President Trumps account and Google, Apple and Amazon banned Parler.

Why is anyone surprised? Media outlets have been censoring conservatives for decades in America.

Back in the days before iPhones and social media, the only way for politicians to communicate with the public i.e. voters was through old-fashioned, traditional means: like newspapers, television, radio and the US Postal Service.

In 1984, former Congressman Alex McMillan of Charlotte (R-NC9) won a squeaker of a race over Democrat D.G. Martin by the slimmest of margins, 321 votes out of over 225,000 votes cast.

To provide historical perspective for Millennials, Apple introduced the MacIntosh personal computer in 1984. A decade later, the internet was developed. Two decades later, along came social media. There were very limited avenues through which conservatives could communicate directly with their constituents without filters from editors and journalists who disagreed with them and essentially suppressed their free speech.

I was chief of staff to Congressman McMillan when his 1986 re-election race was the #1 targeted campaign in the country. In an attempt to build mutual trust with the Charlotte Observer, we allowed their quite capable political reporter, John Monk, full access to our office for four months to do an in-depth story about congressional life in general.

When the article came out in the Charlotte Observer, it painted McMillan in an unfavorable light right in the middle of a tight re-election campaign. After blowing out John for writing such a hatchet job, for which I had to apologize later, he sent me the full article as printed in the Augusta, Georgia, paper which was part of the same Knight-Ridder chain that owned the Charlotte Observer.

No one in Augusta, Georgia, voted for McMillan in Charlotte, North Carolina.

It was fair and balanced, just as John said it would be. But the Observer editors had selectively edited the story down about 30%, ostensibly for space concerns. It was blatantly obvious they did it to help D.G. Martin in his rematch against McMillan because they agreed with him on every issue, not McMillan.

We submitted numerous opinion pieces to the Observer over the next decade only to see most of them rejected. The Observer was owned and operated by staunch liberal Democrats who simply did not want to allow conservative Republicans a forum to air their political views and philosophy.

As a privately owned company, they were entirely within their right to deny access to anyone they did not want to publish. It was just infuriating to conservatives to be constantly told the press is fair, neutral and impartial, when in actual practice, they are not.

We went around such editorial roadblocks by mailing out eight million newsletters, town hall meeting notices and congressional updates to 250,000 households at taxpayer expense via the congressional franking privilege. Not proud to have to admit such a wasteful government expense, but the franking privilege and about $1.5 million in campaign ads, an enormous amount in 1986, were the only two ways we could get past media censorship and biased reporting in North Carolina.

It worked; Alex McMillan won re-election by 4,221 votes, a virtual landslide compared to his 1984 win.

Not much has changed in the media world politically since then except for the rise of Fox News, which used to be the news outlet of choice for conservatives for 30 years. Subscriptions and circulation have plummeted at large newspapers, but they still are echo chambers for such partisan political narratives as Russian Collusion and Moderate Joe Biden.

The most troubling thing is how elite liberal media editors use the freedom of the press guarantee in the First Amendment to pound out the free speech clause of the same amendment for others. Be completely fair to all points of view or be honest enough to admit a specific bias so readers can make up their own minds about whether they agree with you or not.

Conservatives have to stop whining about the liberal bias of the media and start owning their own news outlets. Conservatives should figure out what is going to replace social media and get ahead of the curve, not be smashed by it.

There were thousands of newspapers and pamphlets, all of them partisan to the federalist or anti-federalist point of view at the beginning of the republic, many virulently so. America is going to be far better off as a country going forward with a cacophony of opposing views instead of the silence that follows dictatorial censorship of views that media chairmen, publishers or editors dont like.

Read this article:
HILL: Censorship of conservatives is nothing new The North State Journal - North State Journal

Actor Saurabh Shukla said the COVID-19 induced lockdown gave him an opportunity to read and reflect, more importantly get his creative juices flowing, and he ended up making a full-length one man feature film where he donned the hat of a writer, director and the only character.

The 90-minute film, currently in its post-production stages, is funny, dark and thrilling, Shukla said, adding that he would be soon sending his latest movie for screening at festivals.

The veteran actor, all excited to work in Kaushik Gangulys first Hindi flick Manohar Pandey, also said that Kolkata is his home, and he loves the city for his unique character, culture and food.

Ganguly has made some amazing films. He is multi-talented, and can write direct and act equally well. This film has a soul, it has humour in it but you cant really brand it as just another comedy. Also, I will be sharing screen space with talented co-stars Supriya Pathak and Raghubir Yadav, and I am looking forward to it, the Bollywood actor, who is in the city for shooting of the film, told PTI.

Shukla, also said that he would want to do a Bengali film someday.

Asked about his journey in the film industry from Shekhar Kapurs Bandit Queen to Manohar Pandey the National Award-winning actor underlined that the experience so far has been a fulfilLing one, but not without a fair share of hiccups.

I was overweight, and was usually cast in roles that amused the audience. Comedy also elicits pathos, but that concept wasnt there in Hindi films. We just want an overweight person to be funny. It was Sudhir Mishra, who gave me the role of a professional killer in Is Raat ki Subah Nahi, and my work was noticed and appreciated, the 57-year-old actor said.

Talking about the mushrooming OTT (over-the-top) sites, and the fear that it could overshadow big screen films, Shukla said that every new platform creates its own space, and can co-exist with other mediums. He, however, expressed concern over the growing censorship over art and films in the country.

Censorship has its pros and cons. It is, in some cases, necessary. But, objecting to anything and everything that is not suited to a particular taste and culture is not acceptable, he said.

On a lighter note, Kallu Mama of Ram Gopal Varma Satya also shared that he loves sports, and takes table tennis pretty seriously.

As and when I visit a new city, especially for my shoots, I get in touch with the table tennis clubs there. I have had the opportunity to play with professionals, be it in Los Angeles, London or Lucknow. Not many know that Bengal has some very talented TT players. I got to play with some of them at a club in Bhawanipore here, and it has been an enriching experience, he signed off.

Read the original:
Saurabh Shukla: Censorship has its pros and cons, necessary in some cases - The Indian Express

Close your eyes and imagine a world where any social media post or account could be removed without explanation at the behest of a Trump administration. Thats censorship.

Twitter banning an account? Thats debatable.

When the company confirmed on Jan. 20 that it had locked the account of Chinas embassy in the US due to a tweet defending Beijings policies in Xinjiang, many on Chinas Twitter-like Weibo were quick to mock the US company. What is freedom of speech? It is that the Weibo account of the US embassy in China can still voice its opinions, whereas the account of the Chinese embassy is locked by Twitter, posted one user.

A spokesperson for Chinas foreign ministry echoed that confusion,saying today (link in Chinese) that the embassy was merely trying to explain the truth, and that China was bewildered by Twitters decision.

The now-unavailable tweet cited a report from China Daily, a state-owned English-language newspaper, arguing that government policies in Xinjiang had eradicated extremism and emancipated the minds of Uyghur women, such that they are no longer baby-making machines. Thats contrary to how the US government and other critics understand the situation, which is that as many as 2 million Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities may have been held in internment camps in the far western region, and that Beijing has forced stark reproductive choices on Uyghur women.

A spokesperson from Twitter said the tweet violated a policy which prohibits the dehumanization of a group of people based on their religion, caste, age, disability, serious disease, national origin, race, or ethnicity. Twitter has not confirmed when it banned the account, but it has not issued a tweet since Jan. 9.

Its the second time this month Twitter is defending its decision to silence a high-profile account: On Jan. 8, the company permanently banned the account of now former US president Donald Trump, citing the risk of further incitement of violence following a Trump-encouraged insurrection at the US Capitol. The radical left and their big tech allies cannot marginalize, censor, or silence the American people, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trumps former press secretary, tweeted at the time. This is not China, this is the United States of America, and we are a free country.

Its important to debate how governments should deal with the ever-expanding influence of social platforms, and how those platforms should deal with the ever-expanding need for consistent moderation policies. But its something else entirely for both American and Chinese commentators to compare Twitters moves to censorship, especially given what constitutes censorship in China.

For starters, private US companies like Twitter usually give clear reasons when they suspend accounts or remove certain content, as Twitter did in the Chinese embassy case. For hundreds of millions of Chinese internet users, its common for content to be removed by platforms without explanation, leaving the user to wonder which word or image triggered the censorship. Chinese users even have a catchphrase to describe the sudden removal of their social media accounts: account bombing. Even Hu Xijin, the chief editor of the Chinese state tabloid Global Times, once begged editors (link in Chinese) at Weibo not to delete his followers comments.

Second, US companies generally have the right to decide what content they carry, while all Chinese internet platforms have to follow the orders of the Chinese government, which is primarily concerned with the control of information, rather than misinformation or hate speech. And because Chinese companies are held accountable for even third-party content according to Chinese laws, they spend a great deal of energy censoring political content, while allowing racial slurs to survive. The companies have no power to refuse the authorities request for access to their users information, which has led to the arrests of dissidents. For many Chinese users, it is hard to imagine criticizing or even just joking about their leaders, given that it could result in jail time.

Lastly, being shut out of one platform in the US, or even multiple platforms, doesnt mean a user has nowhere else to voice their opinions. In China, by comparison, its not uncommon for the online presence of a user seen as too politically sensitive by the state to be erased from platforms entirely. Chen Qiushi, a citizen journalist who reported on the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, told Quartz last year that his Chinese social media accounts were deleted after he made a trip to Hong Kong to report on anti-government protests there. Chen has not been seen publicly since February 2020.

Read the rest here:
Why Twitter's "censorship" is not the same as China's - Quartz

Jack Greiner Published 9:42 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2021 | Updated 10:10 a.m. ET Jan. 20, 2021

Matt Schruers, the president of the Computer & Communication Industry Association says Facebook and Twitter are simply "exercising their own speech rights" in banning Trump from their platforms. (Jan. 11) AP Domestic

Two state legislators in Kentucky have recently proposed legislation in response to Twitters decision to ban President Trump from its platform.

Senate Bill 111, entitled the Stop Social Media Censorship Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Robby Mills and Phillip Wheeler, would make a social media platform liable for civil damages if that platform deletes or censors the users religious speech or political speech.

Jack Greiner, attorney for Graydon(Photo: Provided, Provided)

The proposed bill will no doubt appeal to Kentuckians offended by Twitters decision, but it wont sustain an inevitable legal challenge, assuming it is actually enacted.

I try to keep my column to a word limit, so I wont be able to detail every legal defect with this bill.Ill just try to hit the highlights.

Before we even get to the glaring constitutional defects, lets discuss the bills title. Censorship is when the government steps in and prohibits a citizen from uttering an unpopular thought. Its not censorship when a private entity sets rules for engagement and enforces them, even against a sitting President. So, the title itself is a misnomer.

The bill also ignores the concept of preemption.Very simply, under the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution, when a state law conflicts with federal law, the federal law prevails.In this case, Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act provides plainly that:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account ofany action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected;

So the proposed legislation blatantly contradicts federal law. Its preempted and that is not even a close case.

And while the bill ostensibly seeks to advance the First Amendment interests of would-be Twitter users, it actually violates the First Amendment in a fundamental way.

When we think of the First Amendment, we typically focus on how it prevents the government from prohibiting what citizens can say. And it surely does that.

But the other side of the First Amendment coin is that it also prohibits the government from telling us what we are required to say.The Kentucky legislation does exactly that.

It literally tells Twitter that it is required to publish certain speech, and that it will be subject to government sanction if it fails to do so.

That is compelled speech and courts have routinely and correctly struck down statutes that impose such a duty.

The bill also declares Whereas protecting the constitutional rights of the citizens of Kentucky is of utmost importance, an emergency is declared to exist and this Act takes effect upon its passage and approval by the Governor or upon its otherwise becoming a law.

This seems like a bit of an overreach. Were in the middle of responding to a pandemic.That seems like an actual emergency.And one that impacts thousands of Kentuckians. Id be curious if Mills and Wheeler could cite any Kentuckians whove had their accounts deleted by Twitter. And if they can identify any, Id also like to see the circumstances that led to the decision. Maybe theres an emergency in there somewhere, but I have a tough time imagining where it could be. By comparison, the notion that a private entity is kicking a few people off its platform hardly rises to the level of an emergency.

The Stop Social Media Censorship Act is a solution in search of a problem.And the hurt feelings of a former Twitter user in chief is hardly a reason to introduce a law that violates the Constitution.

Jack Greiner is managing partner of Graydon law firm in Cincinnati. He represents Enquirer Media in First Amendment and media issues.

Read or Share this story: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2021/01/19/stop-social-media-censorship-act-co-sponsored-robby-mills-phillip-wheeler/4215693001/

The rest is here:
Strictly Legal: Trump's hurt feelings not a reason to introduce a law that violates the Constitution - The Cincinnati Enquirer

Whether you agree with President Donald Trumps rhetoric or not, the outsize role that Big Tech Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter has played in censoring the sitting president of the United States and erasing Twitters conservative alternative, Parler, should worry you. The actions taken by these media giants last week show exactly why Congress needs to rein in the massive power held by these monopolies thatcan instantly turn off an alternative viewpoint with no opportunity for recourse.

When my family and I legally immigrated to the United States after the 1979 Iranian revolution, we fled a government that controls the media and what its people hear, whilealsocensoring and persecuting its people based on theirreligion, as well opposing ideologyand views. Today, platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter remain banned to people in Iran, mainland China, North Korea and Syria. As weve seen with the removal of Parler from the Amazon cloud, Apple and Google, these tech titans are creating a shockingly parallel line ofbanning speech in the United States, very much like these oppressive nations.

For dictators and thugs,likethe Islamic Republic of Irans supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, or the supreme leader of North Korea Kim Jong Un, who have banned their people from social media, Big Techshould similarly block them from using theiraccounts, especially when they spread lies and propaganda.In 2014,Khamenei sent out a tweet denying that 6 million Jews perished in the Holocaust. Just last week, the Chinese embassy tweeted on Uyghur Muslim women and sterilizing them. Though these accounts were never banned, millions of conservatives accounts were, even if they were nowhere near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

In what is sure to be a showdownwithBig Tech,expect to seeRepublicansin Congress offer legislation to break the monopolies of Big Tech,as well as repealing their liability protections better known as Section 230. In states, a divesting of state contracts with Big Tech companies, as has been offered by Florida House Republican Rep. Randy Fine, are sure to spring up as well.Wecan also expect toseemoreprivateinternet service providers(ISPs) block their users fromsiteslike Twitter and Facebook, as one provider has already done in Idaho.

But regardless of what happens, banning accounts ofconservative voices on social media platforms, with 330 million actively monthly users on Twitter and 2.7 billion on Facebook alone,demands Congressimmediate action.As Florida Sen. Marco Rubio aptly said,We are now living in a country where four or five companies, unelected, unaccountable, have the monopoly power to decide, were gonna wipe people out, were going to erase them, from any digital platform.

The falloutfrom the horrific acts that took place on Capitol Hill, which resulted in the deaths of five people including a Capitol Police officer, will be etched in our memories forever.Unfortunately,the acts of some unlawful, unpatriotic criminals come at the expense of millions of conservative voicesbeing censored and banned from these platforms and the complete shutdown of the number one downloaded app, Parler.What would be even worse is if we allow these Big Tech giantstocontinue down their path of censorship, without any congressional oversight, which could quickly lead the greatest and oldest democracy on earth to crumble into a country that is no better than intolerant nations like Iran and North Korea.

Amanda Makki was a 2020 Republican candidate in Floridas 13thcongressional district. She is a lawyer who worked in Congress for a decade as a health care policy adviser and at the Pentagon just weeksafter 9/11. She is a native Farsi speaker and lives inSt. Petersburg.

Read more here:
In censoring conservatives, Big Tech is acting like Iran or North Korea | Column - Tampa Bay Times